Kinnim, Chapter 2, Mishnah 3. This chapter takes the principles established in the first chapter and stretches them into ever more elaborate cases of birds flying between one set of kinim and another. Our mishnah presents the most sweeping case of all: seven women, seven sets of undesignated pairs standing in a row, and a bird that travels the entire line and back again.
The seven sets
"Lezo achat": the first woman has one undesignated pair. "Lezo shetayim": the second woman has two undesignated pairs. "Lezo shalosh": the third has three. "Lezo arba": the fourth has four. "Lezo chamesh, lezo shesh, velezo sheva": the fifth has five, the sixth has six, and the seventh has seven. All of these are kinin setumot, pairs in which the chatat bird and the olah bird were never designated.
Add them up and there are twenty eight pairs, fifty six birds in all, and every one of them looks exactly like the next. The seven sets stand in a row, each one a distinct set belonging to a distinct owner. Now let us watch what happens.
The flight up the line and back
"Parach min harishona lashniya": a bird flew from the first set to the second. "Lashlishit": then a bird flew from the second to the third. "Larevi'it": from the third to the fourth. "Lachamishit": from the fourth to the fifth. "Lashishit": from the fifth to the sixth. "Lashvi'it": from the sixth to the seventh. "Chazar": and then the flights ran back down the line, from the seventh to the sixth, from the sixth to the fifth, from the fifth to the fourth, from the fourth to the third, from the third to the second, and from the second back to the first.
"Poseil echad bahalichato ve'echad bachazirato." On the way up the line, each single flight disqualifies one bird in the set the bird departed from and one bird in the set it landed in, exactly as we learned in the opening mishnah of the masechet. And on the way back down the line the same thing happens all over again: one bird disqualified where it left from, one bird disqualified where it arrived. There is no difference between the outbound leg and the return leg. Every flight from one set to another triggers the rule of mishnah alef, that a bird crossing between sets disqualifies one bird here and one bird there.
Counting what is left after the first round trip
"Harishona vehashniya ein lahem kelum." The first and second sets are left with nothing at all that can be brought. Between the departures and the arrivals, their entire count has been eaten up.
"Hashlishit yesh lah achat": the third set is left with one pair that can be offered. "Harevi'it yesh lah shtayim": the fourth is left with two. "Hachamishit yesh lah shalosh": the fifth with three. "Hashishit yesh lah arba": the sixth with four. "Hashvi'it yesh lah shesh": the seventh is left with six.
A second round trip
"Parach vechazar": a bird once again traveled up the line and back down again. Since the first and second sets no longer have anything that can be offered, this journey runs among the sets from the third through the seventh.
"Poseil echad bahalichato ve'echad bachazirato." The identical rule applies. Going up, each flight disqualifies one bird in the set left behind and one in the set entered. Coming back down, the same. Every crossing, in either direction, invokes the principle of mishnah alef.
The tally: "hashlishit veharevi'it ein lahem kelum," the third and fourth sets are now left with nothing that can be brought. "Hachamishit yesh lah achat": the fifth has one pair. "Hashishit yesh lah shtayim": the sixth has two. "Hashvi'it yesh lah chamesh": the seventh has five.
A third round trip
Now only the fifth, sixth and seventh sets still hold anything offerable, the first four having been emptied out. "Parach vechazar poseil echad bahalichato ve'echad bachazirato": a bird flew up the line a third time and returned, and once more each flight in each direction disqualifies one bird in the set of departure and one in the set of arrival. A great many birds fall away.
"Hachamishit vehashishit ein lahem kelum." The fifth and sixth sets are left with nothing at all. "Hashvi'it yesh lah arba": the seventh is left with four pairs. The seventh set fares better than the others because it stands at the end of the row: it absorbs only one incoming flight and releases only one outgoing flight per journey, so only two of its birds are lost each time, while the sets in the middle are struck from both sides.
The dissenting view
"Veyeish omrim hashvi'it lo hifsidah kelum." Some say that in this third round the seventh set lost nothing whatsoever, and five pairs may still be offered from it just as before.
The logic of this opinion is worth understanding. A bird becomes disqualified by flying out of its set only because there is another set standing nearby, a set from which that bird might now be offered, and then we risk a situation in which the chatat and the olah belonging to a single owner are not brought together as they must be. By the time of this third series of flights, however, there is no other set left with anything that can be offered. With no viable destination, a bird that leaves the seventh set causes no loss, and the seventh set stands intact.
The crucial qualification
"Ve'im parach mibein hameitot lekulam, harei kulam yamutu." Everything described until now assumes that the birds doing the flying came from sets whose birds were still fit to be offered. That is the framework in which the rule operates: an offerable bird crosses from one set to another, and one bird is disqualified on each side.
But if the bird that arrived came in from a group whose birds must be left to die, then all of the birds in all of the sets must be left to die. We cannot tolerate even one bird destined for death mixed in among the others, because any bird we might wish to offer could be that very bird. It is a genuine safek, and once that bird has traveled through the entire line of seven, there is no way to say where it now sits. It could be any bird in any of the sets. To be certain that nothing pasul is ever brought upon the mizbe'ach, every one of the sets is left to die.